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When this contention by petitioners first became apparent to
the Court, on the morning of the sixth day of trial, the
following colloquy occurred:
THE COURT: And all this time you have not
provided for the Court, and I gather not provided for
respondent, a copy of the document that you are now
telling us was your tax return for 1987.
THE WITNESS [Laney]: I discussed it at audit. I
discussed it with appeals. I have contended that we
did file on time and I have mentioned the fact that we
also asked for an extension and that a second return
was filed and petitioners have been consistent in that
position, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Laney, I had understood until now
that when you said that you contended that your tax
return was filed on time you were contending that you
had received extensions until May 5, 1989, and so the
question is whether or not you had indeed received such
an extension. But now, if I understand correctly, you
are telling us no, that’s not the deadline that is
applicable here and that is not the tax return that is
applicable here; the relevant deadline was August 15,
1988, and you satisfied that August 15, 1988, deadline
by mailing a tax return on August 15, 1988.
THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honor. When the trial
began for this day and we were discussing penalties
petitioner said that he had a certified mail receipt
for the fact that he had filed his return on time and
that it was dated August 15, 1988.
THE COURT: But the only stipulated document as
the tax return was Exhibit 2-B, which clearly showed
your signature and Mrs. Laney’s signature of May 1989,
which was a flat out contradiction to your position.
THE WITNESS: But we still stated at that time
that we had filed a return on August 15th. We’ve never
varied from that. We also took extensive precautions
in case that return was in error to provide us with the
ability to file a second return without paying a
penalty for having the refund if we did not deserve it.
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